


"You are too young to hate the world"

by galactic-pirates (stillsearching47)



Series: Storybrooke Carnival [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 19:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillsearching47/pseuds/galactic-pirates
Summary: Two lonely souls who were in this mess until the end. If nothing else maybe they could help each other forget the world for a little while.





	"You are too young to hate the world"

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to _@mariequitecontrarie_ for being a fabulous beta reader :)

“Do I want to know how you got up here?” Gold asked.

Lacey turned to look at him, the breeze tugging at the loose tendrils of her hair where it had escaped her ponytail. She snorted and resumed staring at the horizon, flicking the ash from her cigarette down onto the ground below. Absently she registered that Gold was moving. She heard him wince and gasp as he clambered out of the coaster car, shuffling along the track and then carefully levering himself down, so he was sitting next to her, their legs hanging over the edge. She ignored him, taking another deep puff on her cigarette.

Gold sighed. “You’re too young to hate the world.”

“Seriously?” Lacey demanded, twisting to glare at him. “If this is the part when you tell me I have my whole fucking life ahead of me, then I’m leaving. I didn’t ask you to come up here, this is my spot, and I have had it up to here with people trying to sell me that crap.”

He took a deep breath, the air whistling around his teeth. He clucked his tongue and Lacey knew he was trying to work out what to say. In the end he said nothing and she gave him a mental point for that, because really what the fuck could he say?

Storybrooke Carnival was a dying trade. Every year the crowds grew smaller, the equipment grew older, and there was no money to invest in upgrades or new rides. Sooner or later they would have to shut up shop and then what would become of them? They had nowhere else to go.

Lacey had grown up at the carnival; it was the only life she’d ever known. Moving around from place to place, she’d never been to school, she didn’t have any qualifications or any money. The future looked pretty damn bleak, and that made her age a burden, not a gift. Gold was the owner of the carnival and its ringmaster; he worked harder than any of them and while a lot of the carnies hated Gold for their recent misfortune, Lacey never had. It wasn’t his fault the world had changed and carnivals weren’t the draw they once were. Gold did his best but sometimes that just wasn’t good enough.

“You’re right,” Gold muttered softly. “I am sorry Lacey.”

“Don’t be,” Lacey snapped. “It’s not your fault.”

“No,” Gold accepted absently, his eyes fixed unseeing on the horizon as his mind played a tape of the past. “But I should have done more for _you_. The writing was on the wall years ago, which is when we lost a lot of people. All the families got out but ...”

“Dad is stubborn. The carnival was his life, he wasn’t about to walk away,” Lacey finished bitterly.

She chose her own fate, if she was told to go left then fuck it she was going right. She’d been fifteen when the company had halved in size, she’d lost so many friends that day. Ruby, the apprentice fortune teller, Ariel, one of the dancers; Emma, who had been training to start a magic act along with her partner, Neal. Gold had lost much as well. Neal was his son; he’d left with the Nolans and hadn’t been seen at the carnival since. There had been a lot of whispers about how even Gold’s own son couldn’t stand him. Her dad had used it as an example in their arguments to help justify his decisions. He wielded Neal’s absence like a weapon, triumphant in the proof that he was the better father, but Lacey had always reckoned the reverse was true.

Gold had let Neal go when he could so easily have made him stay. He’d given Neal his best chance and some days Lacey envied Neal his presumably normal life. The rest of the time she was damn glad her father had snorted in derision, and high-handedly decided that they were both staying. The choice should have been hers but, while this life sucked monkey balls sometimes, dammit this was _her_ life and if given the chance to go back, she wouldn’t change a thing.

“Besides where else can we get a view like this?” Lacey asked. She gave her cigarette another irreverent flick. Things were getting a little too damn heavy for her liking.

She gestured to the horizon, toward the distant city lights, the light of the moon, the stars in the sky. The top of the coaster gave them quite a vista. One last puff of her cigarette and she stubbed it out, tossing the butt over the side, to be whipped away by the wind. She shivered, her light jacket providing little protection from the cool night air.

“Here.” Gold shrugged off his heavier jacket and draped it around her shoulders. She shuffled closer, feeling the warmth from his thigh radiate through her jeans.

“Lacey ...” Gold whispered and she turned, burying her face against his chest. His arm came up to wrap around her.

“We should probably get down,” Lacey suggested reluctantly a few minutes later.

She didn’t want to admit, not even to herself, how safe and right Gold’s arms had felt around her. It wasn’t just the coaster that made her cold, but with him holding her, even her heart seemed to warm. This wasn’t the first time he’d come to find her, and she doubted it would be the last. She was closer to thirty now, than twenty, and there had been an undercurrent of _something_ between them for a while.

Lacey gave him an appraising look. So much of her life had been about what would piss her father off the most. That was the only reason she hadn’t banged Gold’s brains out before now; she actually liked him. It was really past damn time for her to do something she wanted, and it made sense. Two lonely souls who were in this mess until the end. If nothing else maybe they could help each other forget the world for a little while.

Lacey smirked; it would certainly be an entertaining diversion from the train wreck of their lives.


End file.
